Looking back at the last 12 months

I know everyone likes to remark from time to time about how quickly the year is going and express shock about where we currently sit in our calendars; alas I am not a fan of this. But with February just around the corner, I’m considering joining the group mentality. It’s one of the odd things when you’ve had a particularly transformative year that every moment you reflect on where you were this time 12 months earlier you get an impossible to describe sensation, fraught with both excitement and nerves.

You’re both amazed at how different things are from last year, as well as flushed with nervous excitement about where you’ll be this time next year.

After all, as evidenced from your experiences, a lot can change in a year.

This time last year I was living at home, slowly counting down the final months of my final semester of school.

It’s not simply that I didn’t expect to be here in the next twelve months, I never heard of High River at the time.

It’s not because this town isn’t notable, it’s simply that I never really had an intimate understanding of the geography of Alberta.

I knew the names of certain places here like major cities Edmonton and Calgary, as well as smaller places like Red Deer, Lethbridge, Fort McMurray and Medicine Hat.

But I couldn’t really map out any of those places. For example I didn’t realize until I got to Alberta that Red Deer was strategically located between Edmonton and Calgary.

Now it is kind of odd to consider how last year I was completely unaware of what the rest of 2012 (and 2013) had in store for me.

Would I have done anything different? Absolutely not!

Though I would have saved myself a lot of grief by knowing everything would work out and I’d be working steadily as reporter next year.

After all it wasn’t until March that I received a fateful e-mail replying to my job application with an interview request, oddly enough a face-to-face one in downtown Toronto.

I remember waking up at 4 a.m. and driving to Toronto for my 11 a.m. interview (I was super early and got there just before 10 a.m.) and then immediately returning home after it was over, arriving back in Ottawa before 4 p.m.

When I returned home, I vividly remember lying on my bed with my bothersome but all in all awesome cat, considering making the trek up to northern Alberta.

After I got an e-mail in early April announcing I got the job, the first thing I did was take a stroll around downtown Ottawa.

I wasn’t saying my goodbyes but rather processing the luminous city skyline, admitting I was in for one crazy year of adventure.

Still it’s funny to think just twelve months ago, I had absolutely no idea about how transformative the next year would be.